Can Anyone Catch Alexa?

Amazon’s third-party developer strategy has Alexa looking like the Gingerbread Man of digital assistants. After taking over CES in January with multiple Alexa-enable devices, there’s been little pause in Alexa skills and device-enabled growth. As of this writing, we count more than 12,000 Alexa skills (apps) and roughly 100 manufacturers with integrated Alexa IP across multiple smart home categories. And yesterday, Amazon opened its Echo voice processing IP to third party developers, extending Alexa’s lead in smart devices. Given our belief that natural language processing is one of a few core technologies that will enable the screen-less future of computing, we think it’s important to track the pace of the key players in the field.

Source: Amazon

Skills growth impressive, but getting the basics right remains the key for scale.

One measure of Alexa’s increasing utility is the growth in skills that can be downloaded to Echo devices. In just the last 3 months, nearly 5,000 skills have been added to Alexa’s repertoire, which now tops 12,000. Roughly a third of Alexa’s skills are knowledge-based – from education apps like the Old Farmer’s Almanac to trivia categories like Lesser Known Star Wars Facts. Other growth categories include health and fitness with skills like answers to common medical questions and workout suggestions. In addition, nearly 100 smart home skills are available today, an important catalyst for scaling the Alexa-enabled device ecosystem. It’s too early to tell how much scalable utility these skills bring to Alexa usage, particularly the nearly 500 knowledge/trivia skills categories. There is a fun-factor with a lot of these skills and voice access is seamless relative to paging through dozens of apps on your phone. However, Alexa needs to get better at answering basic information-related queries, which we believe will produce sustained utility and growth in Alexa-enabled devices. In a recent test, we found the Echo answered only 41% of information queries correctly.

We found the Echo answered only 41% of information queries correctly.

Device integration pacing well ahead of Google Home.

We count close to 100 manufacturers across several categories that are compatible with Alexa IP today. Smart home coverage, perhaps the most seamless hands free utility Alexa offers, continues to grow – from lighting to locks to thermostat control. Included on this list is Google’s own Nest device, a collaboration that began early last year; however, the relationship has been anything but seamless as a preponderance of Nest skill reviews suggest. We wonder if after a year of collaboration, whether Alexa and Google will ever nest together. Contrasting Echo’s ~100 smart home partners with Google Home, we find a much shorter list. Only around two dozen device manufacturers are integrated with Google’s Assistant IP. Amazon has taken advantage of Echo’s head start on Google Home by pushing integration across many manufacturers and platforms. Google Home will likely follow, but has a long road ahead.

More ahead; auto integration still a question mark.

Yesterday Amazon announced it is making Echo’s mic voice processing technology available to third-party device manufacturers. The IP includes Echo’s 7-microphone array, proprietary Amazon software for “wake word recognition, beamforming, noise reduction, and echo cancellation,” and software for control and communication with the Alexa Voice Service. This could be a significant differentiator for Echo devices. Our testing shows the Echo properly understood 95% of our queries vs 77% for Google Home. We note that this might not be an apples-to-apples comparison due to the user command feed that Alexa provides but Google Home does not. Regardless, our tests suggest that distant, or far-field, communications (voice) recognition is an even bigger potential differentiator for the Echo, and the key IP is included in this open development kit. In terms of what’s to come, we see a big opportunity for Alexa in auto. The platform’s momentum outside the auto category is lost when a user gets behind the wheel. With Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto currently leading in auto infotainment systems, Alexa has a long road ahead. Integration with Ford hybrid and electric vehicles is a nice start, which may portend other electric vehicle entries in the future, and we think Amazon is up for the drive.

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